Semiochemicals for Thrips and Their Use in Pest Management

Thrips (Thysanoptera) are small insects that can cause huge problems in agriculture, horticulture, and forestry through feeding and the transmission of plant viruses. They produce a rich chemical diversity of pheromones and allomones and also respond to a broad range of semiochemicals from plants. These semiochemicals offer many opportunities to develop new approaches to pest management. Aggregation pheromones and plant-derived semiochemicals are already available in commercial products. We review these semiochemicals and consider how we can move away from using them mainly for monitoring to using them for control. We still know very little about the behavioral responses of thrips to semiochemicals, and we show that research in this area is needed to improve the use of semiochemicals in pest management. We also propose that thrips should be used as a model system for semiochemically mediated behaviors of small insects that have limited ability to fly upwind. </p

Semiochemicals for sustainable thrips management

Thrips are small insects that cause direct damage and some transmit viruses to agricultural and horticultural crops and forest trees. Current thrips management requires a significant input of agrichemicals, which creates risks for workers, consumers and the environment. As well, a number of thrips species are of significant quarantine concern. New thrips management strategies are urgently needed to supplement existing tools such as chemical and biological pesticides. For example, semiochemical-based technologies could serve as additional management tools, since they have proved their efficiency at controlling many large insect pests. However, these technologies have been under-exploited for small insects such as thrips. To address this issue, an international network was initiated in 2012, the focus of this Europe Australasian Thrips Semiochemical Network (EATS) is to develop semiochemical-based tools for management of thrips. The progress made in this field is reported in the following paper